1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a marking apparatus. More specifically, the invention relates to an apparatus which can imprint a complete elongated straight mark in one stroke on a suitable object or stack of objects without the use of separate guide means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to imprint an elongated straight line with, for example, a pen or pencil, it is necessary to draw the line by placing the pen or pencil at the starting position of the line and running the pen or pencil over the required extent of the line with the aid of a guide means such as a straight edge. There is no apparatus known to applicant which will imprint a complete line in one stroke and without the use of guide means.
An apparatus which could provide the aforesaid, while having many contemplated uses, would be especially useful in the clothes production process as a marking unit for marking the side edges of stacked layers of cloth. In the production of clothes, the various pieces of a clothing unit (i.e. sleeves, collar, pockets etc.) are cut out of a single layer of cloth by placing a pattern for the piece on the cloth and using the pattern as a guide for cutting. In the mass production of clothes, a plurality of each piece is cut at the same time by stacking a plurality of layers of cloth in a pile and placing the pattern at the top of the pile and using the so placed patterns as guides for cutting.
During the cutting operation, it is quite often necessary to mark the pieces at different places to provide instructions for the sewing operator. When the cloth is closely woven, these marks can be provided by cutting into the stack of cloth to provide a notch in each piece at the appropriate place. Alternatively, the mark can be provided by a heated element placed adjacent the side edge of the stack at the appropriate place. The latter cannot be used with synthetic fabrics since they melt and stick or fuse together and the former cannot be used in loose knit fabrics. In addition, cutting notches leads to spoiled or damaged merchandise if it is not perfectly done.